Welcome to the more than 10 new subscribers this week - it's been a banner week for welcoming new folks to our community.
Photo of the Week
I turned 49 on Saturday! I celebrated in many ways - one of which was to drive to the only Starbucks in my home town (which is clear across town when I'm there) and order a Java Chip Frappuccino. When I ordered a Grande, the barrista (who said it was also her birthday) said I had to have the trente since it was my birthday. And, yes, I drank the entire thing.
Self-Growth and Service - Let’s Meet the Two Types of Values
While I was in Nashville on business a while back, I had the privilege of sitting in a session by Matt Dunsmoor who works with Simon Sinek's organization. If you've not heard of Sinek he has written books like Start With Why, Find Your Why, and Leaders Eat Last. I've not read Sinek's books but I've listened to a TED talk and read and heard about his work enough to get the gist.
In Matt's presentation, we were partnered with someone and listened to stories from their life (and they listened to stories from our lives). From these two or three stories (my partner and I were able to do three) we had to craft the other person's "why" which I have always thought of as a life's purpose. The statements were very much draft and writing this is a reminder that I need to do some more work on these exercises with some friends and colleagues to continue seeing if we can determine one another's "why's" (p.s. - part of the reason I've not jumped to Sinek's work is I don't like this phrasing of finding your "why").
While abbreviated in length (we only had about 90 minutes total for the entire workshop), my partner did an excellent job of identifying what he believed to be my life purpose: To validate others sense of self so that they can freely learn and grow into who they are. For someone who met me and heard three stories about my life in 90 minutes, that’s a pretty decent summary of who I am and what I want from life.
The idea of values came up again in my Quarterly Retreat. Each quarter, I spend some time identifying where I am aligned with my values and where I would like greater alignment with my values. My personal values are freedom, authenticity, growth, compassion, and creativity.
I've always thought of these values as global/life purposes based values. However, I may need to rethink this as apply some of the learning from that workshop in Nashville and I dive into learning and writing even more about values - from identifying them, to making decisions using your values, to the role of values in boundaries, to finding alignment with corporate values in the groups and organizations you work with.
I started reading Your Life On Purpose (which is also this week's featured book note), which identifies two different types of values: Self -growth and service values. In the book, they ask you to think about these and decide if the area is important to you and if it is, if you're satisfied with it in your life write now. The two different groupings are:
Self-growth Value Areas
Physical Self-Care and Health
Spirituality
Creativity
Leisure and Play
Work and Career
Personal Growth and Education
Self-Kindness and Compassion
Service Value Areas
Family
Friendships and Other Social Relationships
Community and Volunteerism
The Environment and Nature
The Golden Rule
A note on that last category "The Golden Rule". This book (Your Life On Purpose) is quite old and so doesn't reflect some of the newer thinking in this area which is often called The Platinum Rule. This summary of the difference between the Golden Rule and what is now dubbed the Platinum Rule is from a 2009 article in Inside Higher Education:
The golden rule is to do unto others as you'd have them do unto you; the platinum rule is to do unto others as they'd want done unto them. In other words, reject reciprocity as an ideal, in favor of something like empathy.
As I consider my personal value words [freedom, authenticity, growth, compassion, and creativity] against these two broad categories I realize there is much, much more work I need to do in order to try to flesh out exactly what I mean by these values. I've done some work like this in the past, but I think it's time for a bit of a refresh - particularly given that I now work for myself. Freedom has a much different set of boundariers around it now that I’m my own boss than it could ever have around it when I worked for someone else. It’s time to define those boundaries. I hope you’ll enjoy seeing how this develops for me - and I hope that you’ll consider coming along on this journey. If you want to join me, here is how you could get started:
Do you have personal values?
If so, how did you develop them?
Are they words, phrases, stories, images?
You can certainly do this on your own, but I’d love to hear from you! Hit reply and let me know an answer to one of these or a question you have about values.
Where’s Kara?
A quick summary of where I’m going to be hanging out online and IRL over the next few weeks. Join me, and if I’m visiting near you, hit reply and let’s meet up!
In Real Life (IRL)
I’m headed to Zoo Boo and the Sugar Factory here in Indianapolis on Friday afternoon of this week! Looking forward to this mini adventure in my own home town.
Next week I'm in Denver, Colorado for a few days.
In early November, I'm in Northern Minnesota for a few days.
In late November, I'm in Baltimore, Maryland for a couple of days.
Around the Virtual World
Quarterly Retreat - Last week, I said it was the last chance for the Quarterly Retreat. Boy was I wrong!
Background: I’ve written about my last two quarterly reviews on my business blog (here and here). And, later this week I’ll be posting about my Q4 Review.
I wanted to start making this a little more formal process - and for accountability and because I think this is a good process anyone can benefit from, I decided to do a live version of my Retreat as a coworking session with others.
We held that session last week and it was fantastic. Throughout the course of the day about 12 different people joined live with several more downloading the workbook. My dear friend Alessandra asked if I’d do another one - adding a guided session on Wednesday night of this coming week and another coworking retreat next Sunday. If you’re interested, you are welcome to join. It is still free but will probably transition to a paid event starting in January. Here is the registration link for this coming week: https://lu.ma/QuarterlyReview
Join My Course and Community - You will often find me hanging out in the course and community for my course “Facts of Life Book”. Do you need to organize your most important stuff for life’s most important moments? If so, then the Facts of Life Book course is just for you. With loads of templates, tools, and guides I’ll help you get your most important information organized. Newsletter readers - get in now for the low cost of only $25 for life!
AP Productivity - I’m once again joining my friend R.J. Nestor as a mentor in his exceptional course AP Productivity. This is an eight week cohort based course designed to help you build systems and tools to be more productive - in the things that matter to you! R.J.’s course was such a game changer for me and for how I live my life and do my work.
Linking Your Thinking - I am also taking Nick Milo’s online course Linking Your Thinking. It kicks off this week.
Tools, Tips, & Tricks
Add your credit cards to your phone's wallet
I have not been a big advocate of doing this until the last couple of weeks when a couple of friends and I have had experiences where it has come in extremely handy (or would have in my case) to have my credit cards pre-loaded into my (in my case) Google Wallet on my phone. (Apple has similar functionality.)
Where this came into play for me was on the cruise. Gayle and I were doing the one business-y task of a cruise - which is to appropriately split our bill so that she pays her charges and I pay mine. We both, mistakenly thought, Disney already had my card on file but they didn't. So, I had to run back to the stateroom to get my physical credit card. If I had had it loaded on my phone, they could have added it from there.
What I Published This Week
Unfortunately, I came back from vacation with COVID, so my publishing schedule is still a little off. What this has taught me is that I have to have at least a week ahead whenever I’m gone. That said, this coming week should be “normal”. Here is what was officially released this week.
Cruise trip posts - The Origin Story. More posts will be coming all week so you can check back on http://www.iwannabemewhenigrowup.com during the week to see more posts.
Facts of Life Book Series
As I build towards the official launch of the Facts of Life Book Course and Community on January 1, you can now see all of the content originally planned for the article series on the Facts of Life Book website.
This Week’s Featured Book Note
Each week, I’m featuring one book note from a book I’m currently reading. Click the image to view this week’s note as a PDF file.
Diversion
Even if you don’t care one little bit about baseball, I still think you’ll enjoy this just over four minute video. The amount of planning and preparation that went into this is incredible. It’s great without sound but if you can turn the volume up, that just enhances the experience.
Ways You Can Support Me
Join the Facts of Life Book Course and Community
I officially launch the course - The Facts of Life Book - on January 1, 2023. Join now for just $25 and get the lowest price ever and some fun bonuses along the way as we get ready to get all of our most important information organized in 2023.
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Readwise is an incredible service that takes all of the highlights you take on Kindle, on various web sites, and in so many other places and stores and organizes them for you. It generates a daily (or more often/less often as you prefer) set of highlights for you to review so that you can better remember what you read. Readwise also syncs with all kinds of apps including Evernote, Notion, Obsidian, Roam Research, Log Seq and more. If you’d like an extended 60 day trial, use my link https://readwise.io/kara
I look forward to hearing more of your work in aligning with your values. I am taking a step back, myself, to engage in this over-due introspection. I know my "why" has changed a bit over the past few years, but at the same time I believe my underlying values and direction are the same. I see myself more in need of clarification and alignment with more authentic action than an overhaul of where I am. There is an element of bravery that I need to step into as well.